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Monday, January 9, 2017

How To Change Your Tire

The biggest thing to
remember when your relationship falls apart, or when you have a flat tire, is
it always feels like it is a pivotal moment that might define your life and it feels
fatal. But, it’s not. You don’t stop being and you don’t stop moving so you
have to deal with it calmly and coolly and understand that the approach to
changing the tire is the most important part of moving on. Because nothing
about the course of events leading up to the moment when two people exchange I
love yous and when they depart is premeditated. Even a suggestion of
premeditation might seem fatalistic, I want you to know that not every ride
ends on a flat tire. Since you’ve learned to change your own tires you haven’t
been on a single ride on your bicycle that ends on a flat tire. There’s no
guarantee on the road between people and no remedy to the consequences and
causalities of words and their interpretations. There is a way to fix a bicycle
tire and keep moving.

It does matter which tire
is flat. If it’s the front then it’s an easier experience because you don’t
have to deal with the drive-train. So, let’s work through how you change out a
rear wheel. Generally on a ride you can feel the PSI in the tires and you can
feel if something is slowly leaking because it might seem like the bicycle is
compressing into the ground. Something will feel off and though you can’t tell
what it is, that feeling is something you should trust. In this situation we’ll
imagine you truly got a flat. You heard the hiss, you felt the thump, and you
immediately understood what happened. Perhaps there was debris from a tire in
the road. The wires underneath the rubber mesh of the debris might have been
protruding and after many passes under car and truck tires it might have
disintegrated into a small object on the shoulder of the road. It could also be
glass or rummage from a working truck, nails and screws; whatever it is, you
feel like you know and have the power to fix it.

Just remember before you
start fixing it, a flat tire is an offering of distance. It’s easier to carry
tools than hope on the road and on a bicycle you need to be ready to help
yourself. I’ve found flats on bicycles after a long winter of no riding, however,
if you’re involved with cycling over any period of time then the tire will go
flat. I’ve had my heart break out on the porch, like a slow leak, and felt it
follow me inside to a night of deflating. I’ve woken after rides with a flat
from a slow leak. If the risk is a guarantee, it is important to chase it and
accept the offering because flats can always be fixed, and most risks earn
rewards. The flat tire is a beautiful annoyance that shatters the delusion of
comfort and sparks self to the surface; enjoy it.

Because of your
experience outside of Levingston, four flats in one thunderstorm and a night
spent under the overpass of a highway shivering in the rain, you fix tires well
the first time. Let’s use that day. You’ve been out for two and a half months.
The day has separated in valleys and rainstorms and you’ve gotten your first
flat. It was after passing the debris of a tire, though that experience will be
different this time because you’ll fix the problem and you won’t only change
the tire. This time you’ll only have one flat.

It’s sunny. Too hot for
comfort, but it is the dry heat of the west, Montana. There is a collection of
trees off the road. Dismount, lift the back, and roll the bicycle over to that
clump of cedars. Remove your front bag and turn on your phone to see if you
have service; don’t wait, set it aside, and continue the task at hand. Remove
the tent lashed onto the back rack with two small bungee cords and set it on
the ground. Hopefully there’s some grass to sit on, if not, use your foot to
clear the bark away from a single spot and avoid any loose rocks. Now sit down
and make yourself comfortable.

Remember enjoying the
experience of the flat is through the approach. If it is a guarantee, then
approach it with an earnest desire to rectify the situation and be in it. Don’t
move too quickly through the process. Check your surroundings and make yourself
at home underneath the shade of a tree, or any shade, if you can. You don’t
need too much, but you might enjoy a break from the sun and this is your break
because you’ll have spent some time fixing the tube. Enjoy it and make sure to
drink water. I know I always enjoy the beginning of the experience, and
sometimes I get frustrated, but remember that you know how to fix this and how
to keep moving. This is fixable and it will make you feel better about
everything. Because you can fix it.

Shift the bicycle into
the smallest cog on the rear wheel and then loosen the quick release. At this
point you would have to loosen the brakes, but since Estella, a Trek Portland,
had disc brakes you simply have to grab the top of the wheel tightly around the
tire and lift the bicycle off the ground with your offhand. Now push the wheel
out of the dropout and make sure the chain doesn’t stay caught on the gears. Set
the wheel on the ground close to where you will sit with the cog aiming up and
lay the bicycle frame on the opposite side of the drivetrain. Remember that you
don’t want to muck up your chain or your gears, but you can’t hold both things
at the same time while trying to fix something. You need to let the frame wait
and solve the problem at hand, and it will be fine, lay it on its side.
Sometimes bicycles need breaks too.

Take your front bag off
your handlebars and bring it with you to the ground. Sit with your legs crossed
and pull out your tire levers, your patch kit, your new spare tube, and your
phone. You don’t have service, but it is a beautiful day and it might be
important to take a picture. Take a picture, but not of the road or the cars,
or of the valley that you’re currently in. Take a picture of the wheel leaning
against Estella, and Estella lying on the ground. The picture doesn’t mean
anything to anyone else and it doesn’t capture anything about you except to say
that once you were where you are and knowing that is enough. I know that’s
enough. You know it too. We’ve always been dealing with this since we started.

You, on the page, are the
actor working it all out. You are the fantasy of my trying to understand what
happened. The present consumes me and I’ve always tried to impart something to
you about it that might later come back to me because our relationship is
symbiotic. You have always been what I need to remember when I write you
correctly. A reminder that life isn’t the consequence of a moment haunting the
self beyond the point of redemption. Life is a constant and fluid experience. You
are the extracted grace of what I am. It’s an unnecessary burden that I give to
you, but as much as you are the permanence in black, you are also fluid. You
exist perpetually being written and embodying the good things that I recognize
and try to point out and keep close like lessons. I will always be learning
from you because I don’t know how else to learn. I continue to work hard to
teach you and create you, an act that builds me in the present.

Turn your phone off.
While you are out on the road, other people are going through life and they
don’t actually believe this is anything other than some sort of privileged fad.
That will be true enough, but this is special. I know that. You know that. The
road is salvation from the time when I’m drowning in lines, the promise of the
lines of the road seem like the maintenance that I need to make you stronger. The
hardest thing to remember is that I need to approach myself with the same
intentions that I approach Estella. You do it though, and well, you grow and
forget the haunted feeling of past lovers. Even if sometimes you reminisce it
is not bitterly.

Take your tire lever and
align it with a spoke, then insert it under the bead of the tire and flip it
over the rim. If you’re having trouble, put a second lever further down the
rim, then flip both sides to allow the bead to pop out easier. Straddle the
tire on your lap and let the wheel face away from you, the tire resting on your
chest, and pull the lever along the rim while rolling the wheel. The lever will
circulate along the bead and pop the tire out on one side of the wheel.

I sometimes forget, and I
forgot then, but you should always remember, and now you will remember that after
the bead is popped is the moment when you can change the future by dealing with
precision to fix the present concern—where you earnestly work to find out why
your tire is flat. Remove the tube, pulling out the valve first, and use your
pump to fill it and see what type of leak you have. If the leak is obvious you
will see it unwilling to inflate; if it is simply draining then you don’t need
to find it yet. Return your focus to the wheel. Instead of having four flat
tires later as the day goes on, you’re going to run your fingers on the inside
of the tire. First on the left side, where you won’t feel anything, then on the
right side. At some point you will feel the sharp prick of metal. It will be a
small, sharp wire from the mesh of a car tire. Take the tweezers out of your
front bag and pull it out if you can’t get it with your fingernails.

You don’t need to have
tweezers with you. But having them is a preparation for the unexpected.
Sometimes you might find yourself with a splinter if your handlebar tape wears
thin enough, or if you make a fire at night. It feels good to be prepared.
Because whether or not you have imagined a situation, you came prepared to face
it. You have the tools necessary to solve complications and you don’t feel
guilty about what you did or didn’t say. What you did or didn’t do. And, I know
you don’t feel guilt or anxiety about my actions because you do not own them
and this is where I grow. When I give you these moments like clothes to try on
in different positions and in different poses. I anticipate they will look
better on you, or you will wear them correctly. I make you hold them forever,
Atlas of my life, because when I am gone the lessons will carry on and we will
both be better.

Once you’ve removed the wire
from the tire it’s time to fix the tube. Fill the tube with a puncture with air
until you can hear the tube wheeze. Run your hands on the outside of the tube
to feel for the air escaping. If you cannot feel for it, and I have more luck
with this, listen to it. Put the tube to your ear and wait to hear and feel the
air push toward you. When you can hear it try and move your finger over the
hole. Once you’ve done that lick the tube. If you can’t visually see the hole,
wetting the tube will force the air to bubble past the water. It will be
obvious where the problem is and that is the first step to fixing a problem.

I imagine it’s easier to
listen closely for what is broken than to try and find it reactively. I’m
trying to work through an experience on the porch. Close proximity, words
whispered in the growing dark, listening closely for the pop. Words can
articulate that something has gone wrong and maybe actions are the wheeze of
the tire going flat and the exit of someone else walking home is the flat. There
is no patch to offer solace between mistakes when those mistakes are choices.
But, those choices were mistakes and it was impossible to know that except for
it to wheeze out and fall flat in the growing distance between a lover leaving
and a muted pain, growing to a knowledge of absence. But the echo of a hurt
voice only resonates a hurt in the distance between and it doesn’t heal or fix
with insistence like a patch.

So, open your patch kit.
I’ll make sure that inside is a variety of patches, a sander, and extra glue.
Try and clean the tube off as much as possible of grime and dirt. Sand off the
area where the tear on the tube is. Apply rubber glue or guerilla glue to the
tube and the patch then put the patch over it. Grab your tire lever and use the
back of the scoop to create friction through fast rubbing to dry and harden the
glue. Look up and enjoy the view. There is no growing and indeterminate absence
here. It’s windy and you can see the clouds swirling on the horizon and
storming, and you know this will be your last flat of the day. You will ride
through the valley between mountains on a road like an oxbow river in the rain
laughing and you’ll camp on a nice grassy field.

Let’s assume that the
tube is fixed. It’s fixing, gluing itself back together. You have done the work
to allow things to get better and now you have to wait. Maybe it’s time to
enjoy a cigarette on the road. I know I rarely let you smoke because it is a
problematic suggestion on paper, but this time since we’re reimagining
something together, you take a cigarette out of your front box and put it in
your mouth. Now light it. As much as you can continually change and transform
and better yourself, there are things that I know I will not stop even though I
know they are absurd. I’ll think about this new absence now, but back then,
think of the last love that left you. Remember how she ruined ‘hiii’ because of
how goddamn sweet that spelling tasted? Leave the goddamn behind. That’s just
me getting in your way. Remember how sweet the ‘hiii’ tasted? How your phone would
blink red and you wondered if it was a ‘hiii’ from the distance now
nonexistent. How with four characters you felt completely immersed in yourself
and connected to another permanently. The word like something out of a John
Donne poem.

Smoke the cigarette
thoughtlessly if you can. Remember that the flat tire tried to bring you to the
surface and let you confront the day. Delight in the present state of matter.
There won’t be any animals because the highway is the bridge between civilization
and nature, but the absence of both, the absence of the picturesque or the
sublime—the forgettable space. Copy-pasted versions of landscapes that could be
anywhere and that is where you find the most comfort. It’s crazy that suburbs
seem so new, landscapes have been replicas of landscapes in the West since
explorers compared experience to the past. Delight in the stories written about
a place like this.

I know we can’t blame the
explorers though. Every confrontation with something new is a reminder of
something you have once experienced or seen because there is no other way to
approach the world. It is the constant reminder you face that you are in fact
not special, just an experience everyone is having. And that’s beautiful because
you can recognize how important it is to be earnest and to deal with others
fairly and try and impart to them something of yourself and not criticize them
if they take something from you that you didn’t want to give. When you
understand we are not special, you can know our interactions make each other
special. And this is reassuring because you will always give it all, and I know
I try to remember that when I’m falling short of you.

Your cigarette is dying
and you ash the finale and rub it into the dirt. Take the butt and put it into
your bike box, as much as you dislike the smell of stale smoke that reminds you
of what you do to yourself, you don’t leave remnants of your presence on the
road. Because owning the experience is more than enough and more than you could
ask for and taking that away from someone else is an unfair laziness. Grab the
wheel, the new tube, a tire lever and settle into the waving shade of the trees
and the sounds of leaves like Aspen chimes. Settle into where you are and
understand here is the pursuit.

Fill the tube with a
little air. Enough to give it form and remove the wrinkles in the flatness of
its curvature. Give the tube its own shape back. This step is important to
remove a significant chance of pinch flats. Those generally occur when the tube
is stuck under the bead of the tire and you attempt to fill it. With the tube
filling and retaining a shape it will naturally stick into the throat of the
tire and you can feel more assured that you won’t pop your own tire out of
haste. Put the tube in valve first at the hole in the wheel. Don’t just put the
tube in before inserting the valve, say what you feel when you know you mean
it.

Thread the tube first
into the throat of the tire, then thread the tube into the tire. Push it inside
the tire so you can feel the partially filled tube in the throat of the tire
and can prepare to put the tire’s bead into the rim of the wheel. When it’s
inside, use your thumbs to roll a section of the bead into the rim at the
opposite end of the wheel. The spokes will be facing you as you do this. You
might take it as an opportunity to pull between the sets of spokes and see if
the tension is correct. If the wheel is not true, you will feel it when you
reattach the quick release and ride because the wheel will wobble and it will
create consequences in the long term. But, check the tension because you know
it feels good to try and fix things, even if you don’t know how, and knowing
what something is wrong stops a lot of problems from getting out of control. Like
when I walked away from her in the snow, tracks leading away and you instead
turned back and saw that in her eyes she didn’t mean it, and it turned out
differently. Make sure the wheel is true because you can’t see what’s behind
you when you’re pushing yourself forward.

With the first section of
the tire put back into the rim, continue with both hands, moving in tandem up
each side of the wheel. Roll the tire itself with your thumb and continue
moving toward the top of the wheel. As you get closer the tension on the tire
will increase as the bead creates a horizon line across the rim. This will
happen when you’ve got about a six inch section of the tire left revealed on
the outside and it needs help to go into the rim. Always try to roll horizon over
the rim with your thumbs. Roll on the outside while letting your palms slide
across the outside of the tire and push upward toward the middle, like you are
crimping the tire’s bead into the rim. If you can’t, you can use the tire lever
to follow the inside of the rim and it will do this for you; you can do this
though and each time you do it strengthens you.

And I guess strength is
not actually what I want for you. Each time you do this it increases your
endurance to make it through a hardship in your life with precision and poise; it
teaches you to remember to respect the tasks that you chose to accomplish and to
respect the weight of a job well-done. I’ve seen you in a moment or two where I
felt close to calling you beautiful, but your beauty is in what you do and it
has nothing to do with how you look. I know I feel a harbored collection of
resentment within myself for what I think, but what you do is beautiful and on
the road you’ve never complicated that and you’ve shied from opportunities that
would take away the beauty of the act and taint it with desperation. I applaud
you for that; I applaud you for your tenacity; I applaud you for changing tires
well.

The tire is in the wheel,
but you need to check for pinches of the tube sticking under the tire again,
because pinch flats are a problem. Roll the tire back and look into the rim to
see if you can see any buttons of rubber are sticking out. If you can, then use
the tire lever to push it onto the opposite side of the bead. Do this around
the entirety of the wheel on the side where you inserted the tire. By this time
you might feel the desire to lament the flat. Don’t, you will cover all the
distance that you set out to cover because this only matters to you and because
you are building the worth of yourself by continuously challenging what you are
capable of, you don’t have to worry about anything. The guarantee of distance
is only limited by the restriction of time and you haven’t committed to an
impossible task, you’re here for the moments where you excel.

Grab your pump and attach
it to the valve-stem and start pumping. When the tire is full it will feel like
a rock. 120 PSI is very strong and you won’t get close to that with your hand
pump. You should try toward that though. Pump it as tight against the tire as
you can until you cannot move any air in without a serious amount of effort. You
will be passing a town somewhere and there will be a place with a
pressure-gauge pump that you can use. Don’t even question that, ask door to
door if you want; strangers are much more generous and open to you. You look
like someone with purpose. The amount of gear you carry with you screams
intentions beyond the place you are at and I wish I could figure out how to
carry intentions in person, but you’ll be fine.

I should be you. You
sound great and so resolute and useful. I love how open you are, how willing to
experience for the sake of the experience. The hardships I put upon myself are
acts of penance with a mixture of deep and genuine satisfaction. In some ways the
idea of penance seems stupid. I feel it makes sense though. I thought I’d be
dead by 20 and I acted like it and I’ve been living in compunction since my
conscious developed a conscience. There’s just something nice with spending 9
months only interacting with strangers you never see again, and while you can
remain attached virtually to your past, you only project your experience of the
hardships, and you savor the journey. And maybe there are some people who know
me who need to see me suffer; at least I know that I need to see that. But, you
can be the written detail of a prayer. Because bicycling for long enough
becomes more spiritual than any attempt to intone a chant.

Stand up and wipe the
dirt off and prepare yourself to return to the sun and the revolving storms, the
blinding light and the pursuit of the horizon. Put your wheel into the drop
out, first pushing the derailleur down to open the chain, and attach the wheel
to the frame. Pick up the frame and tighten the quick release and try and
wiggle the tire to make sure it is both true and firm. Put on your panniers
then attach your tent with your bungee cords and put your front box onto the
frame. Now, return to the road and be better than I am.